Legalizing pot

For the first time in 44 years, a clear majority of California voters favors legalizing marijuana, a new Field Poll found.

And where there's smoke, there might soon be fire: A specific legalization ballot initiative now seeking signatures to get on next November's ballot also has majority support, the poll found.

"These results are not surprising," said sociology professor Josh Meisel, co-director of the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research. "We've seen this trend nationally.

"An important message from this in terms of thinking about this more locally is how is Humboldt County, and the North Coast region, going to adjust economically to this potential shift?" Meisel added. "Not just economically, but thinking what sorts of regulations might be put in place to ensure that the environmental harms we're seeing under renegade marijuana growing does not continue."

Tony Silvaggio of the Center for Cannabis and Social Policy wrote in an email to the Times-Standard that he thinks the results are part of a cultural shift in attitude about the use of marijuana.

"There has been a proliferation of medical research on the benefits of medicinal marijuana, which has helped shift public opinion, and the public no longer buys the government's prohibitionist myth that marijuana is a gateway drug," Silvaggio wrote.

California voters narrowly rejected a legalization measure in 2010, and Washington and Colorado voters approved theirs the nation's first in 2012.

"The proverbial genie is out of the bottle," Meisel said. "California legalized medical marijuana in 1996. The citizens of California have had the opportunity to see what the impacts have been."

It has been a long climb. Only 13 percent of Californians favored legalization when the Field Poll started asking about marijuana in 1969 amid the tumult of Woodstock, Stonewall and Apollo 11. In 1983, as Nancy Reagan told America to "just say no," 30 percent of California voters said yes. In 2010, the poll found 50 percent in favor, yet that year's Proposition 19 legalization measure fell short with 46.5 percent of the vote.

Humboldt County residents gave a resounding "no" to legalization in 2010, voting down Proposition 19.

Now, support for legalization stands at 55 percent in the state, according to the latest poll. Eight percent say anyone should be able to buy it, and 47 percent support legalizing it with age and other controls like those for alcohol.

Legalization finds more support among Democrats and independents than Republicans, more among liberals than conservatives and more among white people than Latinos and black people.

The poll revealed a small generation gap: 64 percent of 18-to-49-year-old voters favor legalization, with support dropping among older voters yet still 47 percent among those 65 and up.

"It's certainly a generational phenomenon" just like with other social issues like same-sex marriage, said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.

Yet he cautioned that these numbers won't spell an easy victory at the ballot box, as older voters tend to turn out in higher numbers.

The Field Poll which surveyed 1,002 registered California voters from Nov. 14 through Dec. 5, with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points also asked voters whether they would support the California Cannabis Hemp Initiative. That proposed ballot measure would decriminalize marijuana and hemp use, possession, cultivation, transportation and distribution for those over age 21, and would require the Legislature to license and tax commercial sales.

After hearing a summary of the initiative's official ballot description, 56 percent of voters said they would support it, 39 percent would oppose it and 5 percent had no opinion.

"That's amazing. A lot of people were on the fence about whether our initiative could make it," ballot measure proponent Buddy Duzy said.

Duzy has until Feb. 24 to gather valid signatures from at least 504,760 registered voters to put the measure on November's ballot.

He might have competition. Organizers backed by the late Progressive Insurance CEO Peter Lewis a prolific drug-reform advocate on Dec. 4 submitted a "Control, Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act" for review by the state Attorney General's Office. And Americans for Policy Reform submitted final revisions to its "Marijuana Control, Legalization and Revenue Act" on Friday.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's chairing an American Civil Liberties Union panel on legalization, agreed the poll numbers shore up a "growing consensus to move on this in 2014 and not wait until 2016, and that's a big shift even from six months ago."

He quipped that he'd be the last person to say it's coming "whether you like it or not" exactly what he did say in 2008 about same-sex marriage.